The climate issue, they say, is more important than ever this year given the raging wildfires out West and the intense hurricane season in the Atlantic.
“I’m not saying that the debates should only be about this or that they should primarily be about this,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.).
“What I am saying is: Don’t forget to talk about it,” the freshman lawmaker said over the phone from his home in Orange County, where he said nearby blazes turned the skies a dull orange earlier this week. “Because it’s no longer an issue that’s looming in the distance. It’s here. All I have to do is look out the window and see the threat.”
Seventy members of Congress and nearly four dozen environmental groups are asking moderators to prioritize climate change.
Earlier this month, Levin led nearly six dozen of his Democratic colleagues in penning a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates asking it to “make climate change a centerpiece” of its four events scheduled for this and next month.
“Given the dire nature of the crisis,” they wrote to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that convenes the debates, “we ask that you break precedent and publicly call on the moderators to include climate in the topics that will be addressed during the debates.”
The moderators that the commission picked for the three presidential debates between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden are Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday,” Steve Scully of C-SPAN and Kristen Welker of NBC News. Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief of USA Today, will moderate the debate between Vice President Pence and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Biden’s running mate.
After the moderators were announced, the Sierra Club, the Sunrise Movement, the League of Conservation Voters and 42 other left-leaning organizations wrote a separate letter to the journalists arguing that failing to ask a question about climate change is “unacceptable.”
“This is not a partisan issue,” they wrote.
The commission did not respond to a request for comment. The first debate is set for Sept. 29.
The requests come after moderators didn’t ask anything about climate change in the 2016 debates.
In 2016, the closest thing to a question about climate change came from Ken Bone, a coal plant worker who asked the candidates about energy policy — though he is better remembered for his bright, comfy sweater that gave him 15 minutes of fame online.
“Last time, the only climate question was from one guy in a red sweater,” said Jared Leopold, a co-founder of Evergreen Action, an environmental group circulating a petition seeking suggestions for what to ask Trump and Biden about climate change. “It was inexcusable in 2016 to only have one question and it would be even more inexcusable in 2020.”
Levin, the California congressman who previously worked as an environmental attorney, said he was motivated to run for Congress in 2018 due to the lack of attention on climate change during the Trump-Clinton debate he attended in Las Vegas.
“I remember watching all of them and wondering where the questions were about climate change,” he said.
Debates have been a focal point for climate activists before. During the presidential primary, the youth-led Sunrise Movement and other groups unsuccessfully pressed the Democratic National Committee to hold a debate specifically about climate change.
Moderators focused more on climate change during those primary events, though activists complained that only seven minutes were devoted to the issue during the first Democratic debate last year.
Trump and Biden have starkly different views on not only future energy policy, but also on the scientific reality of human-driven climate change itself.
Calling climate change a “historic” crisis during the Democratic National Convention, Biden wants to dramatically increase the number of electric vehicles on the road and eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035. If asked about climate change, he would likely tout his $2 trillion climate plan.
Trump and other Republicans, meanwhile, did not address climate change at all during their own nominating event. In the past, Trump often called climate change a “hoax,” and it’s unclear how he would address a direct question at the debates.
More broadly, the wildfires in California and Oregon — likely made more intense by human-caused climate change — have yet to penetrate the back-and-forth between Biden and Trump.
“We know Joe Biden may bring up climate change. Donald Trump won’t,” said Lauren French, senior communications director for Climate Power 2020, which help organize the green groups’ letter.
Thermometer
Wildfires continue to ravage the West, leaving death and destruction in their wake.
“Wildfires continued to burn out of control up and down the length of the West Coast on Thursday, with smoke blotting out the sun in parts of Oregon and California,” my colleagues Andrew Freedman and Timothy Bella report.
Here’s the latest news:
- At least seven people, including a 1-year-old boy, have died in California, Oregon and Washington state, according to officials on Wednesday.
- In Oregon, more than 900,000 acres have burned in 72 hours, according to Gov. Kate Brown (D).
- The U.S. government’s Air Quality Index shows unhealthy air levels in California, Oregon and Washington, with pollution levels in near Salem, Ore., the highest on the planet.
- In Oregon, officials expanded evacuation zones in Clackamas County as two wildfires advance toward Portland’s suburbs.
Smoke turned the sky in the San Francisco Bay area orange on Wednesday, causing birds to fail to recognize daylight.
Some commentators compared the sky to a scene from an apocalyptic film, while others wondered whether lawmakers would care more about climate change if the fires were happening near the Capitol instead of on the West coast.
This year’s hurricane season continues to be unusually active.
“Sept. 10 marks the historical peak of Atlantic hurricane season, and right on cue the oceans are blistering with activity,” my colleague Matthew Cappucci writes. “Tropical Storms Rene and Paulette are whirling over the open waters, but there are signs something more ominous could be brewing. Meteorologists are monitoring a total of seven systems across the Atlantic.”
This season has already seen 17 named storms, compared with 11 in a normal season. Although many have been weak so far, the season is only halfway over.
Meteorologists are tracking a developing tropical storm wave off the coast of Africa that is likely to intensify over the weekend and could eventually impact the United States, as well as storm clusters closer to home, off the Mid-Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Facebook is working on a new approach to climate misinformation.
The company told Bloomberg News that it is developing an information center with scientific sources on climate change. Facebook has similar centers for reliable information on the coronavirus and on how to vote in the upcoming election.
Users can currently flag misinformation to the company’s third-party fact-checkers, who can add labels warning about inaccurate information, but the company has ruled out removing climate misinformation, as it does with other posts deemed to cause an imminent harm to human health. And last summer, a group claiming that more carbon dioxide was good for the planet successfully appealed an advertising ban after Facebook ruled that their posts were opinions and not eligible for fact-checking, Bloomberg writes.
The information center places less of an emphasis on evaluating disputed claims in each individual post, which can require a fact-checking process that often finishes up only after a post has already gone viral. Instead, it directs users to more general information from vetted sources.
Power plays
Senators have reached a rare bipartisan deal to limit a powerful greenhouse gas.
“In a rare show of defiance of the Trump administration, key Senate Republicans joined Democrats Thursday in agreeing to phase out chemicals widely used in air conditioners and refrigeration that are warming the planet,” my colleagues Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson report.
The Trump administration has refused to join nearly 200 countries in the 2016 Kigali Amendment, an agreement that would reduce hydrofluorocarbons, which are potent contributors to climate change. But a coalition that includes environmental groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and corporations that manufacture less harmful coolants seems to have swayed lawmakers.
Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the Republican chair of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, joined with Sens. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) and John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) on Thursday in proposing the phase out. It would reduce the production and importation of hydrofluorocarbons by 85 percent in the next 15 years, putting the country on target to meet the goals outlined in the Kigali Amendment.
“The proposed phase-down will be offered as an amendment to a bipartisan energy bill, though it is unclear whether it will clear both chambers and be signed into law by President Trump before Congress adjourns in January,” Eilperin and Mufson write.
Democrats introduced a new economic and environmental plan containing elements of the Green New Deal.
“Democratic lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a U.S. economic recovery agenda that would bolster union jobs while tackling climate change and racial injustice – a wide ranging alternative to Republican proposals for stimulating the coronavirus-battered economy,” Reuters reports.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) introduced the Thrive resolution — short for Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy — with 83 co-sponsors.
The resolution is backed by Green New Deal co-authors Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and also has the support of major environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and the Sunrise movement.
More of a list of priorities than a detailed set of actions, the resolution sets a goal for the U.S. to move to carbon-free electricity by 2035. It also calls for more investment in renewable energy and increased attention to the disproportionate impact of pollution on poor and minority communities.
In the courts
Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia sued the EPA over pollution in Chesapeake Bay.
“The suit from Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, along with Washington, D.C., argues the EPA hasn’t met its obligations under the Clean Water Act to ensure Pennsylvania and New York met requirements to protect the bay,” the Hill reports.
A 2014 agreement required states in the bay’s watershed to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, but the lawsuit argues that the EPA has not done enough to ensure that Pennsylvania and New York meet pollution reduction targets.
Delaware is suing 31 fossil fuel companies over climate change.
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings filed a lawsuit on Thursday in Delaware Superior Court against major fossil fuel companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil. The complaint alleges that the defendants’ contributions to climate change and misinformation over climate science put the state’s economy and environment at risk.
“Exxon, Chevron, and other mega-corporations knew exactly what kind of sacrifices the world would make to support their profits, and they deceived the public for decades. Now we are staring down a crisis at our shores, and taxpayers are once again footing the bill for damage to our roads, our beaches, our environment, and our economy,” Jennings said in a statement.
Delaware follows in the footsteps of a number of other states that have also sued the oil industry over the effects of climate change.
The EPA’s top lawyer turned in a resignation letter on Thursday.
Matt Leopold, general counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave the agency in the coming weeks, even as he has defended his record defending the Trump administration’s rollbacks of environmental regulations in court, Politico reports. He will be replaced in an acting capacity by principal deputy general counsel David Fotouhi.
Leopold has defended his record against critics who have said that the agency’s deregulatory actions have fallen afoul of the law. He told Politico that the agency has won two-thirds of substantive legal challenges against it and argued that some legal trackers that show a lower success rate have distorted cases in which judges largely sided with the agency but objected to certain points.
Extinction events
A new report blames humans for decimating wildlife and contributing to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Average populations of nearly 4,400 mammals, amphibians, birds, fish and reptiles dropped by 68 percent since 1970, according to the World Wildlife Fund report, which is based on vertebrate monitoring projects around the world,” my colleague Karin Brulliard writes.
The report attributes the drop to habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, overhunting and overfishing, and climate change. Those findings reinforce other studies. The United Nations warned last year that 1 million species were on the brink of extinction.
But the WWF report also highlighted the role of dysfunctional ecosystems in contributing to the disease spillover between animals and humans. The report said that the coronavirus should be viewed as an “SOS signal for the human enterprise.”
“Covid-19 is a clear manifestation of our broken relationship with nature and highlights the deep interconnection between the health of both people and the planet,” wrote Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International.
